{"id":3657,"date":"2025-02-16T20:07:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T20:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/garisonfitch.com\/?p=3657"},"modified":"2026-01-26T16:44:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T16:44:55","slug":"the-turtle-a-parody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garisonfitch.com\/?p=3657","title":{"rendered":"The Turtle – a Parody"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When did you last read a funny book? (Read a sample below.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Turtle cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Join Tuttle as he is recruited by a wandering and mystical armadillo to help a baker\u2019s dozen of dogs recapture their homeland from the fearsome Haug, a feral swine of enormous size, malevolence and smell. Along the way, they encounter a tennis-loving bear, almost-magical cats, and dreaded chupacabralopes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a foreword from award-winning cartoonist Leigh Rubin (\u201cRubes\u201d) and illustrations from Sam White, creator and artist of the newspaper comic strip \u201cTuttle\u2019s\u201d, this is what a beloved children\u2019s story might look like in West Texas. Published by Waldorf Publishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would chide the author for making fun of one of the great classics of children\u2019s literature if he weren\u2019t so dang funny doing it.\u201d
\u2014Charlie W. Starr, author of The Faun\u2019s Bookshelf: C. S. Lewis on Why Myth Matters.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can order The Turtle \u2013 parody<\/em> for your Kindle<\/a> or in paperback<\/a> by clicking here! Get your audio<\/a> copy here! Or contact me at garisonfitch@gmail.com for an autographed copy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read a sample<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/em>
In a hole in the ground, there lived a turtle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without doing a lot of research, I\u2019m going to go out on a limb and say this was not normal, for a swamp turtle anyway. Nor was it a normal hole, such as the wild critters you may have encountered live in, but a nice, cozy hole that smelled of good, swampy food and had the comforts a turtle likes, such as a flat-screen TV and high speed internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This particular turtle\u2019s name was Tuttle; Tuttle T. Turtle, or just Tut for short, and he lived in a place the locals called The Shore. It was nowhere near the ocean, but had received its name in antiquity\u2014some said as far back as last year\u2014when after a sojourn of many days and quarter miles an intrepid band of turtles and other critters arrived in these lands. Someone, it is told in lore, asked, \u201cWanna stop here?\u201d and many other voices replied in unison, \u201cShore. Why not?\u201d For many days, perhaps as long as a week, they referred to their land by its full name, but eventually shortened it to just \u201cShore.\u201d It was later that the local tourism board added the \u201cThe\u201d in the hopes that doing so would make the area sound like one of those tony neighborhoods on the south side of Amarillo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now turtles like a simple life: good food, calm parties with friends, and long discussions about arcane subjects such as neo-Brutalism, square dance etiquette, and the virtues of a good shell wax. Tuttle was no different from his fellow Shorians in this matter and would have been quite happy to remain in such a lifestyle indefinitely or until such time as the new baseball gloves are released in the spring, if his existence had not been interrupted one morning by a visitor he would have been happy to greet had said personage not come with a purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapter One<\/em>
Turtles, you may have noticed if you\u2019ve ever spent much time around them socially, are not generally very active, having all the physical enthusiasm of your average lily pad\u2014for which they are often mistaken.
Alas betimes it was on a cool, crisp summer morning when he probably wouldn\u2019t have accomplished much anyway that Tuttle, sitting on his front porch (yes, his hole had a porch, or a space he referred to as \u201cthe porch\u201d, anyway), that a most unusual visitor showed up.
He was all in grey and, like Tuttle himself, went about with armor on his back. Though Tuttle had not seen him since boyhood, he knew instantly that this must be one of the armadillos for they were often whispered about among the residents of The Shore\u2014whispered about because there were, like, a million of them in every neighborhood and while they were, as a rule, hard of hearing (owing to so much operating of heavy machinery and listening to old punk bands with shoddy earphones) they tended to lean close to all conversations and believe with little evidence that they were being slandered.
This particular armadillo was quite distinctive from all others of his kind for three special and instantly recognizable traits: he wore a tall, pointy hat with a wide brim and no ornamentation, glasses with bright read frames, Larry Mahan boots, a large silver belt-buckle won at the Stanford rodeo and\u2014most eye-catching of all\u2014was not disgustingly filthy or ridden with lice.
This particular armadillo was known to Tuttle, if not by him, and his name was Picadillo. A wise man among his fellow dillas, even those outside his fraternity said of him: \u201cY\u2019know, he ain\u2019t that dumb\u201d to which others might reply, \u201cNo, he ain\u2019t.\u201d For Picadillo, or Pic, as some called him, studied books that weren\u2019t about sports or colorable and was known to travel beyond the boundaries of The Shore and have, if not adventures, slightly more interesting than your average times. Stories of these adventurous times came back to The Shore in rumors \u2026 because Pic never used a travel agent and this was thought by many to be quite gauche.
And it came to pass that on this morning when Tuttle sat on his porch whittling fine birch logs into popsicle sticks to be used in craft projects later that he (the dilla) didst abruptly say, \u201cLeave us dispense with the \u2018good mornings\u2019 and felicitations.\u201d With powers of mental acuity beyond those of most mortals, Pic deftly added, \u201cIt means greetings and good will.\u201d
\u201cWhich is it?\u201d asked the turtle, interrogatively. At the puzzled look on the dilla\u2019s face, the turtle didst elaborate, \u201cGreetings or good will?\u201d
\u201cBoth at once, I suppose,\u201d spake the dilla. Then, as if recovering himself (because he was recovering himself) the dilla didst say, \u201cI will come back one day soon \u2026 with friends.\u201d
\u201cOh-kay,\u201d replied the turtle, drawing the two syllables out as far as was turtly possible. Before the turtle could reply or say more, the armadillo had turned and made his slow, lumbering way down the road.
This being the panhandle (according to legend), the turtle was able to see the dilla walking thence for the rest of the day and into the next morning for the land was, as described by those learned souls who knew it well, flat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Join Tuttle as he is recruited by a wandering and mystical armadillo to help a baker\u2019s dozen of dogs recapture their homeland from the fearsome Haug, a feral swine of enormous size, malevolence and smell. 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